BRIDGES 5.0: Bridging Risks to an Inclusive Digital and Green future by Enhancing workforce Skills for Industry 5.0

European Commission - Horizon

BRIDGES 5.0 bridges risks on the path to an inclusive digital and green future by improving workforce skills for Industry 5.0. To achieve this goal, four actions are key:

1. Quantitative mapping of job change and new green and digital jobs emerging in Industry 4.0, and qualitative understanding of Industry 5.0 requirements (human- and social-centric, sustainable, and resilient) for these jobs and business practices.
2. Mapping Industry 5. 0 skills and skills gaps at the EU level and in five EU institutions for emerging green and digital jobs and monitoring skills gaps using skills taxonomies and standards
3. Creating learning and training pathways using the expanded concepts of teaching and learning factories and testing them to reduce skills gaps among four target groups: Managers, workers, job seekers, and students
4. Engaging a range of stakeholders from industry and related sectors at regional, national and EU levels and co-creating a web platform called the Industry 5.0 Platform. The platform facilitates (social) innovation in learning and provides these stakeholders and target groups with recommendations and tools for new learning and training systems.

The results contribute to an adequate supply of skilled workers that enable companies to optimize gains from digitalization and acquire the right skills to manage digital and green transformation to achieve a sustainable, resilient and more equitable future for Europe.

Stakeholder engagement is critical to the success of Industrie 5.0, and BRIDGES 5.0 creates a unique collaboration between researchers, eight EU industrial companies, nine Industrie 4.0 ecosystems, and key EU social partners. An interactive process is created between stakeholder groups to align their different interests. In this process, the research results, which are produced in several steps, are an important resource for the individual stakeholder groups. A business plan supports the sustainability of the Industrie 5.0 platform.

Project Website

• Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO - Coordination)
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL)
• Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT)
• Panepistimio Patron (Patras University) (LMS)
• Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers Centre d'Études de l'Emploi et du Travail-Lirsa (CNAM)
• Departamento de Educacion del Gobierno Vasco
• Technical University of Dortmund (TUDO)
• Stichting Platform Beta en Techniek (PBT)
• Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa Mondragon Goi Eskola Politeknikoa (MGEP)
• Lietuvos Pramonininku Konfederacija (LPK)
• Universita degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro (UNIBA)
• Universitetet I Agder (UIA)
• Workplace Innovation Europe CLG (WIE)
• Comau Industries (Comau SPA) (COM)
• Infineon Technologies Austria AG (IFAT)
• Kitron (UAB) (KIT)
• Industry 4.0 Platform Austria (IPL)
• Kriziu tyrimo centras (Hybridlab) (HYB)
• FH Joanneum Gesellshaft MBH (FHJ)
• Kauno Technologijos Universitetas (KTU)

Against the background of a historical analysis of preceding industrializations, BRIDGES 5.0 focuses on vocational schools or vocational training institutions (VET). The project investigates what their interconnectedness with innovation and industry means for technological transitions. This sheds light on whether and how VET has supported different industrial situations to date and how systemic local or sectoral characteristics might merge into a global institutional framework.

BRIDGES 5.0 also aims to understand the effectiveness of Industry 4.0 strategies and uses Industry 5.0 to provide guidance and recommendations for policy makers:inside and companies.

By using a human-centered and ethical approach, the project can expand the assessment of skills needed in the workplace. A socio-centric approach leads to addressing technological and social innovation, stimulating new social practices in companies, creating more social ownership, and market uptake of the solutions and social change developed. Both approaches underline the importance of Industry 5.0 strategies for companies.

BRIDGES 5.0 will combine existing EU-wide and national data sources; innovative methods will link Internet-collected data on job vacancies and organization-level documents to identify emerging occupations and renewal of tasks and skills; existing taxonomies will be improved to monitor technology-driven changes in skills demand; EU-wide assessments and in-depth analyses of specific sectoral, regional, and institutional frameworks will be conducted, linking to OECD and CEDEFOP and national Industry 5. 0 initiatives. Various methodologies will provide forecasts based on projections and expert assessments in future workshops to capture future skills needs, skills shifts by sector, and skills that cannot be automated.